Scientific Films of the 1920s - 1930s - continued...

This is one of the contexts within which Emil von Skramlik's "Tierische Hypnose" ("Animal Hypnosis", 1920) may be considered. Skramlik later made a series of films on the physiology of frogs and contributed to the film "Genussmittel Tabak," a Nazi-era work of medical propaganda concerning the dangers of smoking. His early film "Tierische "Hypnose" is a model of scientific sobriety serving to demonstrate the authenticity of animal hypnosis. This condition had been a subject of scientific controversy since the second half of the 19th century. Disputes surrounded the location of the condition in the animal's body – some claiming it was the brain, others the spinal cord - while certain scientists argued that it was more akin to cataplexy than hypnosis. This controversy was part of the lively dispute surrounding hypnosis more generally. Demonstrations of animal hypnosis may have helped naturalize hypnosis as properly scientific.